If I Could Just Exist Without You
by PhoebeWeatherfieldx
Summary: Tsunade realizes she made a huge mistake by betting that Jiraiya wouldn't come home when he leaves to seek out Pain. She reflects on their friendship and the timing of this mission coupled with these new feelings. But what if she does get the chance to change her regrets and tell him all she's been feeling? (Jiraiya is not dead.)


**One shot? Is there more to do? I love how this ends but I'd also love to explore their relationship. Tell me what you think!**

Tsunade stood at her office window and stared out over the village she led. The village was suspiciously quiet, so quiet that she could hear the silence. Outside the sun was setting and cast long shadows over the village while washing it in a purple glow. While others may have referred to this scene as "calm," Tsunade felt unnerved by it all. Something was off. This quiet seemed foreboding as though it was a precursor to something loud and screeching. Was it the fact that Jiraiya was gone on a mission she didn't want him to go on? One she had a bad feeling about? Or was it the fact that her whole life was a series of adversity punctuated by bad news, and this was the only outcome she expected? The life sentence of a shinobi.

It would only be fitting if Jiraiya didn't return, to become another name added to her long list of loves lost. Her brother. Dan. Even Orochimaru could be counted on that list. She had lost everything by this point, so what was just one more thing? All she had left was what.._.her whole village_?

But it wasn't the same, obviously. Her fingers fidgeted nervously, her mind floating to the bottle of sake she had in her drawer that could help steady her. She did have such a bad feeling about Jiraiya out there, alone, the closest anyone had ever come to the Akatsuki. The ending of his life _would _be now, right when she was starting to…

_No. _She wouldn't allow her to think it. _Don't admit that._ Not right now. Not until she knew…

How could she not though? How did it take this long to get to this point? To… _Don't say it, Tsunade._ Fall in love with him? _Dammit. _

This was the man who was, in the simplest terms, an extension of herself. How did she think she could hide from him- from herself- for all these years? Jiraiya wasn't just there for the defining moments in her life, he _lived_ them too; everything that shaped her shaped him too. It was both a conscious and subconscious understanding like no other. Of course this wasn't special to only them- all other shinobi squads shared this too. But Jiraiya was _her_ person.

Even though Dan was _supposed _to be her person, his mind wasn't filled with the same memories, shaping experiences, emotions that she had. Jiraiya wasn't at the fringes of her memories, he was a core figure- of love, of hate, of triumphs. Of traumas. And she was the core of his too. They grew each mission, each bonding experience, into the same person in a way. She knew each of his deeply held beliefs and what shaped them; she was most likely right alongside him in those early, shaping years. Orochimaru too.

Tsunade sighed as her mind suddenly turned to Naruto. The similarities between Naruto and Jiraiya were innumerable. (Though thankfully he didn't seem to try to sneak a peek at his female teammate's naked body while she bathed in the stream on missions, something she couldn't say about Jiraiya.) She understood why Naruto was going to the ends of the earth and his energy to go after Sasuke. Losing a teammate is like losing a piece of yourself. You're never truly settled within yourself once they are gone. You're always looking for something to establish equilibrium again, a normalcy; Naruto though wouldn't settle until he had the real thing.

It's why she and Jiraiya became wanderers. They searched elsewhere, wandering, yearning for a new life because their old one didn't feel like home anymore. If Orochimaru wasn't there to round them out, they'd just find a new life. Become a new person. Discover a new normalcy. But they just kept wandering because they couldn't outrun those demons or those memories that held tight to their bones and broke them. They couldn't run from themselves no matter how hard they tried. They had to face that their life had to go on without their third "self".

Now, it wasn't that they didn't try to get him back. No. Lord knows they tried, especially Jiraiya. It was why he was out there right now, wherever "there" was, setting the world just about as right as it could be. If he couldn't save Orochimaru, he'd at least save the rest of the world.

Of course she admitted that Orochimaru knew her in the same ways too; he could be counted just as close to her as Jiraiya, in almost all ways except for one: Orochimaru didn't have the added trauma of watching himself go. It was just one more thing that drew her and Jiraiya closer together, and one of the only things they couldn't count Orochimaru in on. Three slowly just became two.

Even when they were running from themselves, they were always tethered to the same filament no matter how far they went; their shared experiences that led them out beyond the Leaf Village away from each other were what also kept them grounded together. This rope that connected them was braided with memories. And pain. And laughter. And love-

If they were this connected, could she feel the end? She was so unlucky and her betting had started to look up. And she bet against him… So would she feel the moment? What would she do? Would she tell him she loved him, to the him out in the universe now? _In_ love with him?

_How did she let this pass? How _dare_ she?_

The sun was almost behind the trees now and darkness settled over the village. It was suffocating. Behind her, she heard the door creak open. "Shizune-" she began, wanting to ask for more time alone to collect her thoughts and sake. 

"Tsu," a gruff voice called. It wasn't Shizune but she'd recognize that voice anywhere.

Turning around, a breath caught in her lungs, she couldn't stop herself from running into the arms of a very alive yet bloodstained Jiraiya. Somehow her luck came through, just this once, but it didn't matter; this was worth all the money she ever lost.

She wrapped her arms around him tightly, and she could tell she had thrown him off guard by the second it took him to reach up to hug her back. Tightly. It felt like coming home.


End file.
